February 19th, 2019
Hello everyone!
By the time this
post I will have taken my Teacher Aptitude test and I will be sure to tell you
all what my results are once I get them! But! I’m so excited! I want to tell
you guys about an opportunity that came up! UNP was invited to trade students
for one week with a university in Thailand! If I can manage the funds then I
can go and I can show you guys Thailand!
Of course, I’ll need
to take my skin into account and culture. I’ll be around a university so I’ll
go in what I usually wear at school. I talked to the person who is in charge of
international connections and asked him what I need to do to connect him and
Angelo State University! I’ll need to call the school and hopefully this can be
worked out. There are many Filipinos in San Angelo so it won’t be as difficult
for Filipinos to adjust since there’s already a community built for them!
I don’t know if I
mentioned this at any point of time but while I was there in San Angelo I was
part of the Asian American Association of Woman. They’re a nonprofit
organization that promotes Asian culture! The organization originally allowed
only women to join but now it’s possible to be a male a join! When I was a
member I mainly did anything my sister asked me to.
As I mentioned in my
last post, there is a culture festival going on and I’m in the middle of it.
Literally. To the right of my apartment I have the carnival, to the left is the
food court and concerts, and behind the building they had their version of a
Rodeo. Now, sad to say I didn’t go to all the events. I didn’t spend much time
there except for the trade fair, carnival, and food court. But, this apparently
happens every year so I probably have another chance to go next year!
I’ll collect some
articles and share them with you all! This weekend I went to Labayug, Sison,
Pangasinan. One of my friends had to attend a funeral and I told him that I
would be willing to go with him to Pangasinan because I also have family there.
His family is from Bayambang which is an hour and half away from my family’s
place.
Labayug: It is
impossible to see ALL my family in one visit. Even if I stayed for longer than
a weekend I don’t think I’d meet all my family. This time I went to drop off my
Aunties’ pasalubong (gift). It takes six-seven hours to get to Sison from
Vigan. I absolutely can’t stand long rides like that but at least I was on a
good bus. It was a little difficult sitting with my friend because he has to
have the vent turned away from him in order to not get motion sickness but I
need the vent open in order for me to not get motion sickness. Luckily, we both
managed.
The next day I woke
up a little late. I had issues sleeping because Labayug is near a cement
factory and that effects my ability to breath. That’s one of the downfalls of
being there. It’s also hotter in Labayug. Vigan City is nothing like Labayug
heat and I’m thankful for that.
The only thing I
managed to do was go see my cousin/best friend and meet/remeet people at
church. I went in late but that was okay. The pastor picked me out easily and
welcomed me to the church as a visitor. My dad is well known in Labayug outside
of the fact that most everyone is family so I was praised for being there. I
have a few pictures that I took. I’m sorry that I haven’t been scheduling
pictures for y’all but I’ll be sure to do that in my free time!
It was tiring but we
were able to get back to Vigan the second day before 8pm. It was nice to have
someone I know go with me to Labayug. Soon, I will visit my family in San
Emilio. I landed in the Philippines the first day of school so I had to go
straight from Manila to Vigan and that bus trip was awful.
Let’s see… Kanawedan
(Culture festival). I got a henna tattoo! I’ll post a picture of that. The
artist was really cool. He spoke more Tagalog (Filipino) than Ilocano which was
a challenge for me but I know that I’ve come far in learning these two
languages because I was able to communicate with him and he was able to
communicate with me. I never thought I’d be able to understand someone and they
would be able to understand me yet we both cannot speak the other’s language
very well. So he was talking to me in Filipino while I was responding in
English/Ilocano.
I’ve been getting
into the habit of not taking pictures because I want to live in the moment
around me but I also want to share it with you all. I have all these photos
that are sitting in my phone and my computer yet I haven’t scheduled them! I
need to!
My language
progress: It’s weird but I can understand a lot more now than I did when I came
here. I can respond in Ilocano more but I’m nowhere near fluent. I can write
and read better in Tagalog because that’s the language that is required for my
classes. I can understand Tagalog but unless a person is looking at me and
making a point that they’re talking to me I tend to not hear it. Information
overload you know?
As for Ilocano… I
can recognize it and speak some of it but only enough for small conversation. I
can’t read it very well but that’s because most of the words are like ten
characters or more. I mentally skip over it when I pass by it and I try not to
but half the time I don’t realize that I’m doing it.
I was sick this week
and to my surprise I was able to respond to people in Ilocano and English but
if someone speaks to me in Tagalog my brain goes, “Huh. What?” Then it
completely forgets what it’s trying to do. Lol.
This year I’m going
to try to do my best to keep up with this so be prepared to check on my blog
more often because there’ll be more content soon! Thank you guys! Don’t be
afraid to message me and keep up with me.
Thanks again everyone!
DJ/Cho/Nar
Keep up with me at the following:
Ask Questions Here
This will send me an email with your questions you don’t have to leave a name. I will post the answer to the blog!
Facebook
This is mainly for communication so go ahead, add me. Message me every once in a while so that I remember who you are. Otherwise, I'll delete you at the end of the year when I clear through my facebook lol.
Instagram
I follow anyone who follows me! This is mainly pictures of where I go!
Wattpad
If I don’t write a post here there’s probably a chance that I have written something on my Wattpad because there I post poems! They are shorter reads with more meaning. I am currently working on two poetry books but the more important one that ties into this travel blog is called ‘A Barrier Meant To Be Broken’.
This will send me an email with your questions you don’t have to leave a name. I will post the answer to the blog!
This is mainly for communication so go ahead, add me. Message me every once in a while so that I remember who you are. Otherwise, I'll delete you at the end of the year when I clear through my facebook lol.
I follow anyone who follows me! This is mainly pictures of where I go!
Wattpad
If I don’t write a post here there’s probably a chance that I have written something on my Wattpad because there I post poems! They are shorter reads with more meaning. I am currently working on two poetry books but the more important one that ties into this travel blog is called ‘A Barrier Meant To Be Broken’.
